Biden's Israel script changes

When Vice President Joe Biden speaks to the Israeli people Thursday from Tel Aviv University, he’ll read from a speech that went through some major last-minute tweaks.

What had originally been intended as “the big ‘show them the love’ speech," as one member of the American Jewish community in touch with the Obama administration put it, will now emphasize as well that Israel has to take more tangible steps toward peace.

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“The speech was reworked yesterday,” an administration source said. While it’s mostly about the strength of the U.S.- Israeli relationship, he said, “it also has the ‘but you have to do things yourselves for peace’ part – which is now stronger than it was before yesterday.”

While Biden will not let the Obama administration be dragged back into a public row with Israel’s right-wing government over Jewish settlements, sources in and out of the administration say, there is no doubt that the Israeli government’s announcement Tuesday of plans to build another 1,600 Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem was an embarrassing start to Biden’s visit.

Biden had earlier in the day expressed his warmth and admiration for Shimon Peres, Israel’s octogenarian President, joked with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he looked old, reminded his Israeli hosts that he had known every Israeli Prime Minister going back to Golda Meir, and paid a sober visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial with his wife Jill.

But after the Interior Ministry announcement, Biden was forced to issue a sharp condemnation of the controversial housing plan, saying it “undermines trust” and “runs counter” to just-announced plans for U.S.-mediated proximity talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. He then showed up more than an hour and a half late to dinner Tuesday night at Netanyahu’s residence, making no effort to hide that he arrived only after intense consultations with Washington on how to respond.

Netanyahu reportedly apologized for the timing of the announcement by a member of his right-wing governing coalition, the Shas party, and claimed to be in the dark about it. But Netanyahu has long refused to halt Jewish housing or control of East Jerusalem, while Palestinians want it to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

“It's a setback,” veteran Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller said of the East Jerusalem dust up. “But the last thing Bibi or Obama wants right now is a fight … Still Obama must find some way to restore his reputation on the street.”

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Rob Satloff called the announcement on the settlements a “grievous blunder by the Israelis,” but said the important thing was for the U.S. not to become enmeshed in another round of debate over the settlements “as was the case several months ago. That would undermine the very purpose of the Vice President's visit.”

Still, many observers were skeptical that Netanyahu was as in the dark about the plan as he claimed to Biden.